


Vacation

by penny_dreadful



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:21:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penny_dreadful/pseuds/penny_dreadful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team's on vacation. Knowing Reid won't do anything fun, Morgan leaves him a puzzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vacation

_Reid -_  
  
 _Hey, kid. I know we're on break but knowing you, you don't have anything fun planned, so I thought I'd leave you a little surprise. In the envelope there are three love letters. I want you to tell me - just you, no cheating, no asking Penelope for help secretly, you know she'll tell me if you do, she's my girl - everything you can about the person who wrote them, and the person they're written to._  
 _I'll see you in a week._  
  
 _-Morgan_  
  
Reid sipped his coffee and stared at the envelope sitting on his kitchen table. A challenge. Probably not much of one, to be honest. Derek was always trying to do this, stump him with some puzzle. Most likely he'd typed something up to some fake lady and gotten one of his friends to write it out for him. There'd be enough holes in how he allegedly felt for the woman and the way he described her to know immediately that she wasn't real, and enough of Morgan's own tells to know that he'd written them, handwriting or no. The only challenging or fun part would be guessing which of Morgan's friends had done the actual writing.  
  
But it could wait 'til Wednesday at least. He was sure it wouldn't take him longer than a day, and he had other things he wanted to read. Nothing fun planned indeed.  
  
Monday evening he got a text, his phone flashing a picture of Morgan on some beach, looking like a tool in his FBI shades. Morgan had sent it to him one time when he'd refused to go with him to Miami. To make him jealous, he guessed, but mostly it made him glad he was inside and far away from any chance of sunburn.  
  
 _you read the letters yet? totally stumped huh?_  
  
He frowned at his phone. Morgan wasn't usually that pushy.  
  
 _Not yet, no_ , he typed back. _Why? Pretty proud of this one?_  
  
Morgan never replied, which was weird. Usually he'd keep text banter up for days until Reid got bored or forgot about it. But he shrugged and went back to reading.  
  
In the morning he stared at the text again over breakfast, and decided that maybe it couldn't wait. He slit the envelope open and started to read.  
  
It was less three letters and more a bunch of small paragraphs, grouped loosely into three sections, all in the same handwriting. The first was the most carefully written, with the others getting a little shaky, like the writer was writing quickly, or in some distress. Reid started at the beginning.  
  
 _You're pretty much the opposite of my type._  
  
 _It's not that I've never fallen for a dude before. I've been aware of that side of me since I was about fifteen and getting my head turned by the guys down the block as much as the girls on the corners._  
  
 _It's just that every time I have, they've always been, well, like me. Is that narcissistic? It's always been for one night, it's always been about a sort of companionship that women don't get, a closeness that has nothing to do with the mind and heart of a person and everything to do with physicality._  
  
 _So I guess I never have fallen for a dude before. I've just wanted them. But not like I want you. I'm not sure I've ever wanted anyone or anything like I want you, and that doesn't make any sense to me._  
  
Reid looked up from the letter to think. Oh, this was interesting. He was already wrong. Not only was it not about some fake woman, it wasn't about a woman at all - but neither was it from the point of view of a gay man. Morgan wasn't taking any of the easy roads, here. The man writing was confident in himself. Knew who he was. But this lover, whoever he was, was something new.  
  
Reid found himself grinning to himself. This was better than he expected. It was telling a story, and it wasn’t one he knew the ending to. Not yet.  
  
 _It wasn't immediate. It wasn't a love at first sight. Respect at first sight, maybe, or even before. Respect by reputation, though I did have some reservations about how much of that reputation was deserved._  
  
Hints about the one being written to. Someone famous? In some field, certainly, someone with a certain set of skills that they’d perfected.  
  
 _And then when I saw you…well, obviously you’re beautiful. You can’t see it, but you’re not really looking to, are you? And I wasn’t, at first, either. But it started to creep into my consciousness anyway. The little things you do with your hands when you’re thinking. Your hair, your eyes. The little tiny smile that twitches at the corner of your mouth when you’ve thought of something you know no one else has yet._  
  
Obviously the writer and the lover were spending a lot of time together, but they also clearly weren’t in a relationship. These were letters that read more like diary entries. They weren’t written to be sent, but to explore the mind of the writer, get something clear. What, though? He wasn’t agonizing about his own feelings, that much was certain. He was clear on how he felt. Maybe he was trying to figure out what the lover thought of him?  
  
If they weren’t together, what exactly was the relationship?  
  
He turned to the second group. This handwriting was the most hurried and uneven.  
  
 _I almost lost you today._  
  
 _I don’t know what I would have done. People come and go in this job, one way or another. I know that. But you’re such a big part of me. Everyone is, all of us, but you...it’s like you give me something to protect, something concrete, something I can carry with me always. Your quiet confidence in me. Your mind, your amazing mind, that sharpens mine just with proximity. I’m not half as good at anything as I am when I’m around you._  
  
 _I was so scared. I convince myself daily that I can handle it, that I can handle anything. But I was so, so scared that we hadn’t accounted for something, that we weren’t going to get there in time._  
  
Huh. Reid ran a hand through his hair. They worked together, that much was clear, with other people. Some kind of group or team, on something pretty dangerous, it sounded like. Maybe there’d been an accident? The lover had been hurt? If they were doing something with heavy machinery, and something had gone wrong…but there was something weird. The writer was scared that they “hadn’t accounted for something”, like the dangerous situation was part of a plan they’d made. If he’d come across this letter as part of a case he would guess drug dealers or kidnappers, some high-risk job that didn’t actually involve killing people. There was no hint of the deranged mind of a serial killer in these entries. The writing style was earnest and open, not the rambling of an unbalanced mind or even the tightly controlled perfection of an organized killer.  
  
Where the hell had Morgan found them?  
  
He kept reading.  
  
 _You asked me today if I would do something for you, and my answer was immediate. I didn’t even think about it._  
  
 _Anything._  
  
Hang on. There was something familiar about this. Had he read these before? Were they part of a case? But he’d remember the handwriting. Eidetic memory does that. And while the penmanship did look vageuly familiar, it wasn’t exact to anything he’d seen before. It wasn’t the writing he was remembering, just the situation. But from where?  
  
He turned to the last section, frustrated.  
  
 _I’m not sure how much longer I can take this._  
  
 _I’ve never been the “look but don’t touch” type, and you don’t exactly make it easy. We were nearly forced to share a hotel room, recently, but I got out of it. Too scared I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you._  
  
 _I wish I knew what you were thinking when I call you pretty. Does it freak you out? Or do you just think I’m kidding? I know you’re not homophobic, but that doesn’t mean you’d be down to make out with me if I offered. I would probably have to literally say “are you down with making out with me” to find out, though, because genius though you are, you’re the most oblivious guy on the planet._  
  
Reid blinked. Wait.  
  
 _But even then I figure you wouldn’t get it. You’d ask “Hypothetically?” with your eyebrows raised, or ask me why, as if there’s really more than one reason I might be asking you that question._  
  
Reid stared. He picked up the post-it that Morgan had left stuck to the envelope. He’d changed the a’s and the I’s most, and he was making an effort to write in small all-caps to disguise it, but…  
  
 _But like I said, I don’t know how much more of this I can take._  
  
 _So here it is, Reid. All of it. The sappy stuff. The dumb stuff. All the stuff I ever felt the need to jot down because you were driving me out of my mind. And if you want to forget you ever read it—as if you were capable of forgetting anything you’d ever read—go right ahead. But if you don’t, you know where to find me._  
  
Reid sat back. Oh.  
  
Oh.  
  
No wonder Morgan had been so pushy.  
  
He turned back a page. _Beautiful._ Derek called him pretty all the time, but it was always mocking—or so he’d thought, a commentary on the way he dressed or did his hair. But it was real. Derek thought he was beautiful.  
  
Derek liked what he did with his hands when he was thinking. Derek didn’t want to share a hotel room with him—not because Reid didn’t sleep much and he didn’t want to be annoyed by him, like he always claimed, but because he wanted Reid.  
  
Derek wanted him.  
  
Girls hadn’t even ever wanted him. Not once he opened his mouth, anyway.  
  
But Derek wanted all of him. Heart, mind, body. Derek Morgan, his closest friend, was in love with him.  
  
Fuck.  
  
He picked up his phone. Still no response to his text last night. What was he even supposed to do with this?  
  
He tapped several things out and then erased them, starting with “ _what thing do I do with my hands when I’m thinking because I’m kind of always thinking so do you just mean everything?_ ” and ending up with “ _Did you seriously do this when you were on vacation at some lake house a thousand miles away?_ ”  
  
He sent that one, and then sat down, his hand clutched around his phone. His legs were shaking.  
  
The smart thing to do, and Reid prided himself on almost always doing the smart thing, was to turn him down. Fraternization within the team was a terrible idea in every way that mattered. Plus, he wasn’t ready to be in a relationship. He wasn’t…He didn’t even know it was possible for him to be in a relationship, ever. Or want to be.  
  
Did he want to be?  
  
He thought about Morgan. He thought about hugging Morgan, and how much he’d enjoyed it, the shift of muscle against his chest. He thought about Morgan saving his life. He thought about Morgan’s eyes when he was worried. He thought about text-message banter, and car-banter, and plane-banter, and all the times Morgan tried to get him to come on vacation with him.  
  
He liked all of that the way it was. If he turned Morgan down, would it change?   
  
What if he didn’t?  
  
His phone buzzed, and he opened the text message with hurried fingers.  
  
 _Maybe_  
  
What? He was starting to type a response when it buzzed again.  
  
 _It depends_  
  
 _On what?_ He asked.  
  
 _On you. If you want me gone, I’m gone. But otherwise I might be outside your door right now._  
  
Reid stood up too fast, almost knocking over his chair, and opened his door. Morgan was across the hall, leaning against the wall.  
  
“Creepy,” Reid said, but gestured him inside.  
  
Morgan entered his apartment like he would that of an unsub who had a gun pulled on him, all tense shoulders and steady eyes. _Don’t shoot_ , his stance said. “So.”  
  
“So,” Reid parroted. “I, uh.”  
  
Morgan’s brow furrowed, and that’s what Reid had been thinking about, that look there, where his eyes were all warm and worried and he looked like maybe he was pulling all of Reid’s sadness out and storing it up, only Reid wasn’t sad so much as confused.  
  
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” He asked at last. “I might be oblivious sometimes but I’m not stupid.”  
  
“I wanted to give you the space, if you needed it.” Morgan said, standing perfectly still, just watching him pace. “Didn’t want to force you to make a decision on the spot.”  
  
“A decision,” Reid said. “But that’s not really what it is, is it? You didn’t decide to fall for me, and if I felt the same way that wouldn’t be a decision either, would it, it would just be a, a fact.”  
  
“True enough,” said Morgan, still not moving from his don’t-shoot stance.  
  
“What would happen if I said yes?” Reid asked, stopping for a moment in his frantic pacing. “Would we be, would we be dating?”  
  
The muscles in Morgan’s face shifted a fraction, and Reid thought he might be holding back a smile. “If you want,” he said. “But I figure mostly it’ll be what we do now, only we also… touch. Kiss.” He watched Reid’s face. “Fuck, if you want to.”  
  
Reid swallowed, his pacing starting up again. “And if I said no, what would you do then?”  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” Morgan said, and the smile was gone from his voice. “Kid, don’t make this about me, and don’t do it like you’re adding up the pros and cons and balancing an equation. This isn’t something you calculate. It’s about what you want.”  
  
Reid’s momentum carried him right up into Morgan’s personal space. Morgan’s shoulders tensed even further, which Reid hadn’t thought possible. He reached out and traced his fingers down the side of Morgan’s face. “I, I’m really bad at acting on that basis.”  
  
Morgan stared at him. “I know,” he said, and his voice was a little strangled.  
  
Reid leaned in and kissed him. His lips were dry and soft and warm and he smelled, well, like Morgan, but suddenly that was a really incredibly amazing smell, and his hands were in Reid’s hair and that, that was good, that was really very. Good.  
  
Morgan pulled back a little to tilt their foreheads together. “I think I’ve had this dream,” he said softly, and then grinned, and Reid knew it was just chemicals in his brain but he feels so warm. “Only in the dream you were a little less infuriating.”  
  
“I just wanted—all the variables,” Reid stammered, a little breathless, and Morgan leaned in, chuckling against his mouth, and this very well might be the best not-decision he’d ever made.


End file.
